Everyday practices of prepaid electricity in Maputo, Mozambique
Prepaid systems are increasingly popular in the delivery of urban services in Sub-Saharan Africa, but remain under-theorized. Some scholars highlight the advantages of prepayment to consumers and service providers in the face of weak governments, scant infrastucture planning, unclear land tenure, an...
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| Format: | Working paper |
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Institute for Science, Innovation and Society, Univeristy of Oxford
2013
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| _version_ | 1797080396934938624 |
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| author | Baptista, I |
| author_facet | Baptista, I |
| author_sort | Baptista, I |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | Prepaid systems are increasingly popular in the delivery of urban services in Sub-Saharan Africa, but remain under-theorized. Some scholars highlight the advantages of prepayment to consumers and service providers in the face of weak governments, scant infrastucture planning, unclear land tenure, and persistent poverty. Urban scholars scrutinize the inequality and social controls imposed by prepayment on low-income citizens whose social life rests on a sense of provisionality and uncertainty. This paper uses the case study of prepaid electricity in Maputo, Mozambique to investigate the dynamics of prepaid electricity in peri-urban areas in terms of access to energy, autonomy of electricity use and divisibility of energy purchases. By paying attention to the everyday practices of electricity use across these three themes, the paper suggests that prepayment enables and facilitates forms of sociability and social ordering that are not exclusively economic, but also political, familial and technological. The paper makes a contribution to expand theorizations of prepayment in the contest of mainstream theories and policies of utility service delivery in poorly resourced and highly informalized areas of Sub-Saharan Africa. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T00:59:26Z |
| format | Working paper |
| id | oxford-uuid:8936e145-099d-4084-bb1a-8d7480fdb576 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T00:59:26Z |
| publishDate | 2013 |
| publisher | Institute for Science, Innovation and Society, Univeristy of Oxford |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:8936e145-099d-4084-bb1a-8d7480fdb5762022-03-26T22:22:54ZEveryday practices of prepaid electricity in Maputo, MozambiqueWorking paperhttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_8042uuid:8936e145-099d-4084-bb1a-8d7480fdb576Symplectic Elements at OxfordInstitute for Science, Innovation and Society, Univeristy of Oxford2013Baptista, IPrepaid systems are increasingly popular in the delivery of urban services in Sub-Saharan Africa, but remain under-theorized. Some scholars highlight the advantages of prepayment to consumers and service providers in the face of weak governments, scant infrastucture planning, unclear land tenure, and persistent poverty. Urban scholars scrutinize the inequality and social controls imposed by prepayment on low-income citizens whose social life rests on a sense of provisionality and uncertainty. This paper uses the case study of prepaid electricity in Maputo, Mozambique to investigate the dynamics of prepaid electricity in peri-urban areas in terms of access to energy, autonomy of electricity use and divisibility of energy purchases. By paying attention to the everyday practices of electricity use across these three themes, the paper suggests that prepayment enables and facilitates forms of sociability and social ordering that are not exclusively economic, but also political, familial and technological. The paper makes a contribution to expand theorizations of prepayment in the contest of mainstream theories and policies of utility service delivery in poorly resourced and highly informalized areas of Sub-Saharan Africa. |
| spellingShingle | Baptista, I Everyday practices of prepaid electricity in Maputo, Mozambique |
| title | Everyday practices of prepaid electricity in Maputo, Mozambique |
| title_full | Everyday practices of prepaid electricity in Maputo, Mozambique |
| title_fullStr | Everyday practices of prepaid electricity in Maputo, Mozambique |
| title_full_unstemmed | Everyday practices of prepaid electricity in Maputo, Mozambique |
| title_short | Everyday practices of prepaid electricity in Maputo, Mozambique |
| title_sort | everyday practices of prepaid electricity in maputo mozambique |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT baptistai everydaypracticesofprepaidelectricityinmaputomozambique |